I’ve had a way easier time with short-form content because it takes like 4–5 minutes of recording and 15–20 minutes of editing to get a reel up on Instagram. The whole thing costs me only about 30 minutes and a bit of screen time on my phone, but I’m struggling particularly with YouTube because it’s a way bigger assignment than reels. A YouTube video is usually around 10 minutes, at least in my eyes, and that means to have that video I’ll need to spend at least 300 minutes to get it done according to my current stats, right?

My approach up till now has been to script the whole thing, then record the whole thing, then edit but I’m a low-stamina animal. I get tired really easily. I don’t have that much endurance, so I know that if I sit down to write a script for 10 minutes, the first four minutes might be okay but the last six will be absolute trash. The same will happen when I’m out there recording ,the starting sentences will be fine and then the video will get sloppy. And the same will happen with editing. So it’s like your boy doesn’t have the capacity needed to get this YouTube thing rolling if I continue with this approach.

So let’s double down on what is already working. I can make really good 1-minute videos but I also know that 1 *10 is equal to 10. I can just keep making 1-minute segments and then join them to make a 10-minute video. What’s really stopping me from doing that?

Instead that solves a lot of problems that I have right now. Instead of scripting for ten minutes at a time, I can focus on just the given minute in front of me and make it the best I possibly can. Plus I am a really volatile man and I can end up in many rabbit holes. The potential for the Medici effect is high. Why commit to a script for the whole ten minutes? Why not just record the first minute, get it done, and then revisit the topic for the next minute after a while as a changed man? Maybe it can be something way better than what would have been if I had just made a 10-minute script. The random paths this will allow me to explore in my content will be genuinely interesting for people because they hooked me in so they will hook in the audience too.

Basically instead of planning the whole 10 minutes and then executing the 10 minutes all at once, record in batches of one minute and make sure all those strings of 1 minute are connected well.

Videos of this format allow you to take the audience on a journey, a story that unravels itself as time passes on. If you are talking about a past incident from a past lens, you have to convince the audience really hard that this thing is going to be really interesting. On the other hand when you talk about it from the present lens, as if it is unraveling right now, you have the suspense associated with what happens next on your side. You literally gain a narrative device on your side. When you talk about things as they unravel, even if it is a past event, you will see that most crime documentaries talk about things in a day one, day two, day three manner because even if it is a past incident, if you are stuck in day three, you will be naturally curious about day four because mentally it is still future.

A proof of this phenomenon is that you’ll find that news channels or current gossip channels will always have way more attention on them than some history channel. We were present even if mundane has suspense associated with it, that is, what will happen with the future and past. Even if consequential, monumental does not have it. It has to fight for its share of attention and if you don’t want to take up extra burden, just talk about things as they are unravelling. Keeping up with Kardashians. The name literally has it in it.

So the practical takeaway for me is that one thinks about this YouTube thing from a minute perspective. You will go one minute at a time. This also allows me to have multiple projects going on. Hey in one video I might be exploring some part of my personal life; in another I might be exploring some real-world event; in another I might be exploring some curiosity. Since this is all so decentralized and nonlinear, I can explore a lot of topics and maybe that exploration, that is so simultaneous, can benefit the other topics also.

• Record things as they are happening or you are exploring them.
• Dealing with footage 1 minute at a time (basically record 3-4 minutes, edit it right away, and save the project file.)
• Combine it all at the end.

You may record yourself talking. You may record you using the computer as you are exploring things. You may record your room as you’re doing it, like whatever, immerse the audience in your experience.